Sacramento and the Catholic Church: Shaping a Capital City

8. Building a Visible Latino Presence in the City, 1930–1970

On a rainy April day in 1945 hundreds of Mexicans filled the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament for a festive mass celebrated by Bishop Robert Armstrong. Afterward, the church emptied out on to Eleventh Street and assembled for a procession. Here was a virtual microcosm of Sacramento ’s growing Latino/a community. “At the head of the procession,” noted the Catholic newspaper, “was borne a large picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe surrounded by flowers carried by four girls dressed as angels, and surrounded in turn by a group of boys and girls dressed as Indians.” It also included nearly three hundred workers of the Southern Pacific Railroad who carried a streamer with huge lettering: “Trabajadores Catholicos Mexicanos.” Mexican cultural and social organizations also fell in behind the sacred icon of Mary. No doubt as well in the march were migrant workers—braceros—who had been brought to the United States from Mexico as contract laborers to alleviate serious labor shortages in the fields and factories of the West. Among the marchers was Zacharias Esparza, who, “though 75 years of age and suffering from a broken leg,” c h a p t e r 8 Building a Visible Latino Presence in the City, 1930–1970 “Coopere por mi templo” 215 insisted on walking with his crutches from his home nearly a mile from the cathedral and then another mile to the procession’s terminal point, a “new” Mexican chapel, which was housed in the former St. Stephen Church buildings at Third and o streets. The fervency and joy of Sacramento ’s Mexican community knew no bounds in finally having a spiritual home in the city. After the ceremonies of blessing and the enthronement of the painting, people visited the new church all day. In the evening three hundred devout Mexican Catholics returned to Our Lady of Guadalupe chapel to recite the rosary.1 The American West has been powerfully affected by the presence and culture of Latinos/as.2 The mixture of religion and daily life brought from Mexico and other Latin American countries is also a part of Sacramento’s history. The opening of the little chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe was an important milestone for Sacramento Latino/a Catholics. Guadalupe chapel became a spiritual home to Spanish-speaking residents of Sacramento and also the many migrant workers who made Sacramento home between planting and harvesting seasons. It was also an important middle ground between religion and urban life. The church dispensed food and clothing to the poor, helped people find housing, and assisted often-disoriented Spanish speakers navigate Sacramento’s sometimes confusing public life. It also served as a center for political activism and leadership training. In 1958 this chapel gave way to an even more imposing structure located on Seventh and t streets, directly across from one of Sacramento’s most scenic parks. The large Mexican church with its impressive exterior mosaic of Our Lady of Guadalupe was a bastion of cultural pride. latinos/as and sacramento: the background Tracking the number of Mexicans in the city of Sacramento before the mid-twentieth century is difficult. Spanish-speaking citizens resided in Sacramento from its earliest days, many as miners from the Mexican state of Sonora who settled in the city after working in the mines of the southern Sierra. Others predated the Gold Rush and ranched or farmed in outlying areas of the Sacramento Valley. Spanish-origin names appear with some regularity throughout the baptismal registers of St. Rose Church and the cathedral. Their presence in the city has shifted over the course of the city’s exis216 s a c r a m e n t o a n d t h e c at h o l i c c h u r c h tence. One of the earliest and largest concentrations was on the West End (also known as the Lower Side Barrio). Here they lived side by side with the medley of other ethnic groups who came to Sacramento. Ernesto Galarza, who grew up there, wrote of this “colony of refugees” that mixed together “families from Chihuahua, Sonora, Jalisco, and Durango.” Blending together were families who had arrived before the Mexican Revolution and many who had lived in Texas before migrating to California. “In the years before our arrival and the First World War,” wrote Galarza, “the colonia grew and spilled out from the lower part of town. Some...